Did you Know...?...House of Gordon Clansmen & women have done a lot to shape the world as we know it! Here are a few fun facts about your kinsmen and kinswomen, did you know they were Clan Gordon?

... Juliette Gordon Low was known by her family and friends as Daisy and she could trace her ancestors back to the founder of Clan Gordon?

She was born in Georgia, attended school in Virginia and New York and married a Scot. She lived in London and Scotland for many years and was good friends with Rudyard Kipling who wrote The Jungle Book!

... John Muir is known as the first modern day conservationist? Born in Scotland his family came to America and originally settled in Wisconsin. He later moved to California. After temporarily losing his eyesight in a factory accident he decided to spend his life looking for the beauty in life. He founded the Sierra Club and his efforts in conservation inspired President Teddy Roosevelt to form our first National Park at Yosemite! He has been called many things including the Father of Our National Parks, but he described himself as, "a poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc. !!!!"

...A. A. Milne based the Winnie-the-Pooh stories on his son Christopher Robin Milne and his stuffed bear? The real toys now live at the New York City Library, much to the dismay of the Brits and the joy of the Americans! Christopher Robin loved going to the zoo and his favorite animal there was a bear named Winnie. He named his stuffed bear Winnie for the bear at the zoo and Pooh for his favorite swan! The was put in because according to Christopher Robin Winnie was a girl's name and HIS bear was a male bear and everybody knows the makes it a boy! Read more about A A Milne and Christopher Robin and the Pooh toys!

...James Matthew Barrie known to the world as JM Barrie author of Peter Pan was known to his family and friends as Jamie? Jamie was one of ten children born to weaver David Barrie and Margaret Ogilvie Barrie on May 9, 1860, at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, a town he made famous as Thrums.

He really did have a big St. Bernard dog named Porthos who was the inspiration for Nana!And his inspiration for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were the Llewellyn-Davies boys. George, Jack, Peter, Michael and Nicholas (Nico) called him Uncle Jim, and on the death of their mother, became his wards. Read the Adventures of Peter Pan!

Check back later, because we will be adding MORE fun facts!

...Dorothy Gayle was a Gordon? That's right we all love Judy Garland because who else could sing "Over the Rainbow" like her, and who but a Gordon could have faced down that witch? Her grandfather was a Milne from Aberdeen! And, as all of you Gordon Kids know, that makes her a Gordon! She was very proud of it too and spoke about it when she performed in Edinburgh! Read more about it!

... Czar Peter the Great of Russia owed his throne to a Gordon? General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries in Aberdeenshire was part of the Haddo House branch of the family. As a younger son he set out as a soldier of fortune and hired himself out to the Swedish, Polish and finally the Russian armies. In Russia he rose to the highest ranks and organized the army in the European and in particular the Scottish fashion following in the Gordon tradition! In 1689 when Peter's sister Sophia tried to have him killed and take over Russia, it was Patrick Gordon who held Moscow for Peter, putting down the coupe, placing him firmly in control and kept him there! When he died, it was Peter himself who held him and closed his eyes! Older kids may want to read from his journal!

...Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1893 patented a method for making an industrial abrasive he called "Carborundum" or silicon carbide, one of 22 patents named by The United States Patent Office as most responsible for the industrial age? According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, "without carborundum, the mass production manufacturing of precision-ground, interchangeable metal parts would be practically impossible." Acheson went on to discover that when carborundum was heated to a high temperature it produced an almost pure and perfected form of graphite that could be used as a lubricant. During his lifetime, he was granted 70 patents for industrial abrasives, several graphite products, processes for the reduction of oxides, and refractories. His family originated in Forfar, Scotland.

...Richard 'Dick' F. Gordon, Jr., a retired Navy Captain received his naval aviator wings in 1953, and served in the dangerous position of flight test pilot until 1960? In 1961 he won the Bendix Trophy Race from Los Angeles to New York and set a new speed record of 869.74 miles per hour and a transcontinental record of 2 hours 47 minutes.

In 1963 he was chosen by NASA to join the astronaut program and was pilot on the three-day Gemini 11 mission, launched Sept. 12, 1966 along with Commander Charles Conrad, Jr. During this mission he docked with an Agena satellite. Gordon completed the first tethered station-keeping exercise (space walk), but he had to cut it short after 44 minutes because of difficulty maintaining his position in weightlessness without handholds or foot restraints, a valuable lesson for later space walkers. This mission used the Agena engine to rocket to a then-record altitude of 850 miles, and completed the first fully automatic controlled reentry!

Gordon was back in space on Nov. 14, 1969, on the Apollo 12 moon mission along with Conrad & Alan Bean. While Gordon circled 60 miles above the moon obtaining mapping photographs of future landing sites. He also performed the final docking sequences between the Yankee Clipper command module and the lunar module, Intrepid.

In 1971, Gordon became chief of advanced programs for the Astronaut Office and worked on the design and testing of the Space Shuttle and development equipment. A

...Jeff Gordon is the 3rd All-time most winning driver in NASCAR, and he is the first 3-time recipient of the NASCAR Illustrated Person of the Year Award.? But that isn't all that Jeff is about, he is also a well known philanthropist and has done much to help others. In 1999 he established the Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation to help the Jeff Gordon Children's Hospital at the NorthEast Medical Center.In 2007 he joined other athletes in forming Athletes for Hope which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions others to volunteer and support the community. In 2011 he joined with AARP through the Drive to End Hunger program, which donates meals to hunger relief organizations near NASCAR tracks, along with reducing hunger among senior citizens. Jeff is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, which helps global leaders find solutions to ending the world's pressing problems. In 2009 Jeff received the Silver Buffalo Award, the Boy Scouts of America's highest award for his work as a Scout Recruiter and humanitarian work, in 2012 he was the first NASCAR driver to be awarded the Heisman Humanitarian Award for his work in children's causes.